


Frontier Songs

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2016 [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Because it should be, Buffy Insert, Can we make that a tag, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fix-It, Humor, Not Beta Read, Or what passes for it when I'm writing it, Post-Chosen, Prompt Fic, Racist Language, Sibling Relationship, Siblings, Slayers in Love, Time Travel, Wishlist_Fic, graphic description of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 13:50:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8716309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: In which we add a Buffy to Rose Creek and it doesn't fix everything, but quite a bit. (Wishlist, Day 1)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go again: The Wishlist 2016. 
> 
> Today's prompt was brought to you by annmanga (on tumblr) and called for a random Buffy/Magnificent Seven crossover. It wasn't the only prompt they gave me, but it was the one I had an idea for first, so here we are. Enjoy!
> 
> Also, I'm serious about making "Buffy Insert" into an actual tag. It's almost as ridiculous as self inserts, but way more fun.

+

Frontier Songs

+

Rose Creek, Buffy decided as she rode through the subdued, silent town, had been infected by Summers Luck. The burnt-out church loomed in front of her, a row of fresh graves in the little cemetery next to it. 

One of the Dalton kids waved shyly from a porch, only to be immediately and summarily pulled back into the house. 

The hired guns hanging around the Sheriff’s office wolf-whistled at her as she rode past, making a few suggestions on what would look better than her horse between her legs. Scumbags were a universal constant, no matter when you went. 

She finished her circuit quickly and returned home to where Dawn was waiting, solemn and tired. 

“Why does this kind of crap always follow us?” she asked, kicking at their grumpy old stove in lieu of actual asses to kick. 

Buffy sighed and beat the dust off her boots. Why indeed. Sunnydale, then Cleveland and finally, here. This place, this time, was supposed to be refuge. When more and more creepy-crawlies started coming after Dawn for being the Key, nowhere seemed safe. 

So they went with ‘somewhen’ instead of ‘somewhere’ and let Willow spell them backwards in a time a hundred and fifty years, to a time before anyone even knew the Key existed. 

Dawn wanted to go alone, but Buffy wouldn’t let her. And now here they are. They had gotten three years of relative quiet in dusty little Rose Creek before the shit hit the not-yet-invented fan.

And now, Bogue. 

“Summers Luck,” she answered her sister and hip-checked her away from the stove to see what they were having for dinner. Soup. Yum. It turned out that Dawn was actually a good cook when you took all the junk food she used for her weird concoctions back in the future. 

“You weren’t even here when that asshole came to town,” Dawn argued. True. Buffy had been north, putting down a group of wendigos the last, bitter winter had spawned. Ruined a dress, too. 

Buffy gave her a raised eyebrow. “You do remember that you’re a Summers, too, right?”

Dawn snorted and raised her left hand to wiggle her fingers, showing off the ring that sat there as if to say, _for now._. Then she added, “My version of Summers Luck runs more toward kidnapping. You’re the one that brings the absolute mayhem to the table, don’t lie.”

True. 

“Any word from Em?” she asked, slumping into a nearby chair and going to work undoing her million-eyelet boots. They made fantastic ankles, but damn it, too much work. She missed zippers.

It had taken Emma weeks to convince Buffy that these boots were worth buying. 

Emma. 

That had been the worst of it. The church, the scared townsfolk, the fresh graves, Buffy could have lived with that. But one of those graves now held Matt Cullen, one of her best friends, one of the few people that had been willing to extend a hand to two sisters traveling alone, obviously clueless about the world they had landed themselves in. And now he was dead and Emma had gone off, god knows where, to find revenge. 

Buffy’s only comfort was that Teddy was with her, and the kid was smart, even if he was a crap shot. Smart and calm. He’d hopefully keep Emma from taking up with bandits and riding for vengeance, or something along those lines. 

And come back in one piece, because Buffy honestly didn’t know what Dawn would do if he ended up dead, too. Matt was bad enough, but she didn’t plan to marry Matt. 

Dawn shook her head. “She’ll be back soon, though,” she decided, “Has to. Bogue gave us three weeks, and the first one’s almost over.”

What went unsaid was that, whatever Emma brought back with her, it wouldn’t be quiet and it wouldn’t be peaceful. Don’t mess with my man was the Summers motto and if Emma hadn’t been a Cullen already when they’d met her, the sisters would have absolutely made her an honorable Summers. That lady was _fierce_.

Buffy shrugged off her worry, shucked her boots, retrieved two bowls, pulled out the bread and put dinner on the table. They ate. 

+

Emma came back two days later. Buffy was doing her usual round through town because it made her feel like she was doing _something_ besides wait, when she spotted movement at the mouth of the valley, too far away for a human to make out, but clear enough for a slayer. 

Emma and Teddy. Emma and Teddy and a whole bunch of strange men. 

Lovely. 

She dismounted, giving Mr. Gordo a slap on the rump to send him home, and hoped Dawn was inside and safe, because whatever happened next wasn’t going to be fun. 

Indeed, ten minutes later a black man on a horse rode into town, followed by an Asian looking guy on foot. Both were armed to the teeth and clearly looking for a fight. 

Trap. Had to be. Emma wouldn’t hire complete idiots. 

So Buffy decided to help out. She took a few steps forward out of the narrow alley between two buildings. The guy on the horse missed her, but the Asian clocked her. She winked and melted back into the shadows. Hopefully that’d be enough to keep them from shooting her when shit went down. 

Once that was done, she moved around the backs of houses until she reached the one the bad guys had their sniper perched on and quickly and quietly scaled the side. She landed with a muffled thump and drew a knife from her skirt, all set to slit the man’s throat. 

He was human, true, but he was still the baddie here, and Buffy’s job was to keep people safe, not be nice to men who aimed guns at children for fun. 

But as she clocked the guy, waiting for him to move, she realized she was already too late. 

There was a Native American – Indian, had to call them Indians here, no matter how it made her cringe – curled up at the man’s back, holding him in place, knife handle sticking out from the mercenary’s spine. 

He was dead already, propped up by the other guy. From below, he’d look perfectly fine.

Nice. 

The Indian turned as he heard her move, hand going for a second knife at his belt. Buffy raised her hands, knife turned down. “I’m on your side,” she offered, hoped he understood her. Had to, though, at least a little, for him to ride with Emma’s new gang. Which, yep, definitely not idiots. This was the kind of tricky, dirty maneuver the slayer could appreciate.

He took in her knife, her stance, her calm, then shrugged and turned back to watching the showdown happening below without ever really losing track of her movements. 

Buffy went low and peeked over the edge just in time to see everything go pear-shaped. 

A sharp whistle, obviously meant for their dead friend, and the Indian retrieved his knife and heaved the body over the side of the roof, to land below with a splat. 

Gross. 

After that, it was mayhem. 

Buffy wasn’t much use up above with only her knives, to she took a leap and landed right on top one of Bogue’s man, breaking his neck with her boot as she landed. 

Afterwards she spun across Main Street, to and fro, taking out men trying to gang up on Emma’s friends. Once, when they got smart and tried to gang up on _her_ , a timely arrow saved her from having to buy yet another new dress. 

She flicked a grin at the bow-toting Indian on the roof and stabbed one last baddie in the shoulder before slitting his throat with her other dagger. 

The Asian guy, already finished with his gaggle, paused in wiping down his blade long enough to give her an appreciative look. She saluted him, turned once in place and realized the fight was over. 

The fight was over, the ground was littered with dead bodies, and the good guys were haggling over who killed more bad guys. 

Turned out Emma really had taken up with bandits to ride for vengeance. 

Huh.

+

The seven men Emma hired were a weird bunch and, as usual, they didn’t know how to deal with a weapon-wielding badass woman. Even after Emma hugged her tight enough to make her ribs creak and introduced her as the ‘fiercest woman she knew’. 

Buffy blushed. A little. 

Faraday and Vasquez were alternately flirting with her and making jokes at her expense, Horne seemed to pray a lot in her presence – though that might just be Horne – Goodnight and Chisolm – the boss man – seemed to be avoiding her, and Billy Rocks talked shop with her like they were old friends. 

The only one who didn’t seem to react to her at all was her rooftop buddy, Red Harvest. He’d given her a nod after the fight, and then another one when she’d passed him back some of his arrows and offered him new ones, if he needed them. 

“My sister uses a bow, too. She has a pretty impressive stash of arrows.” And a crossbow. And sometimes, Dawn was known to fling a hatchet at whatever was trying to kill her at the time. Buffy’s little sister had grown up terrifying. She was insanely proud. 

Now, introductions out the way, they were all sitting in the slightly holey saloon, plotting. 

Only problem, “Uhm, hello? Aren’t you forgetting something?”

The men all stopped their arguing over the map Emma had drawn them, looking over at her.

“What?” Vasquez asked. He was pretty enough that she almost forgave him for being rude. Almost.

“That’s ‘beg your pardon’, buddy. Also, me? You’re forgetting to factor me into your little war.” Six mouths opened at once. She cut them off with the experience of one who once led an army of teenage girls. “I’m fighting.”

“But you – “

“I’m fighting, or I can just show up in the middle of the battle and potentially ruin your plans and get people killed.” She blinked big and completely fake innocent eyes at them and twisted her hands into her skirt like a helpless maiden. Just, you know, to illustrate how much she wasn’t that. Hell, a few hours ago she’d been kicking ass and slitting throats right next to them and suddenly they were going all protective he-male? Hell no! “That would be bad, right?” she simpered.

She couldn’t be sure, but she thought Red Harvest was laughing. Just, you know, internally.

Chisolm sighed, shook his head. “Well, we can’t really afford to turn down a competent fighter.”

The ‘even if she is female’ went unsaid but not unheard. 

Buffy wedged herself between Vasquez and Faraday, pointed toward the tent village on the map and offered, “Trip wires, gentlemen. Trip wires.”

+

By the time she made it back home, long after midnight, Dawn and Teddy were thankfully done with their reunion, and dressed again. For a while there, Teddy had resisted Dawn’s attempts at premarital naughty times, but in the end, the younger woman had left him no choice in the matter. What a Summers wanted, a Summers got, even if that thing happened to be inside a man’s pants. 

He’d adapted. Quickly. 

Now they were at it like bunnies at all hours of the day and Buffy kept walking in on them. Icky!

“So?” Dawn asked, from where she was sorting through her frankly intimidating stash of crossbow bolts.

“So we’re going to redefine the meaning of the word ‘fighting dirty’. Dynamite, trip wires, fire, tar pits, the whole shebang. It’s going to be ugly.”

Dawn paused, looking between her sister and her man. “You don’t want me there.”

Before dear, precious Teddy could put his foot in, Buffy shook her head. “I never want you anywhere near mass murder, but I know better than to send you off. But long range only, okay?” She frowned at her sister, willing her to understand. She could live with Dawnie fighting. She could not live with Dawnie down in the muck and the blood.

For a moment, it looked like the littlest Summers might fight. Then she rolled her eyes and grinned. “Oh, get over it,” she snarked. “I’m old enough to know my skills, Buffy. I’ll be up high, where no-one can sneak up on me.”

She held up a hand, “Girl Scout’s honor.”

Buffy snorted. “You had no honor. You always ate all the cookies yourself.”

+

The next day, they went to rob the mine. 

Dynamite. Yay!

Buffy came along not only because stealing stuff that went boom was fun, but also because she wanted to get a feel for the guys she was going to turn her back to in a fight soon. 

They were good. Really good. And for seven random dudes who’d just met, they meshed surprisingly well. Goody and Billy scouted the place, Red and Vasquez took out the mercenaries guarding the place, and they all helped corral and convert the workers and then again to load up the loot. Smooth. Practiced, almost. All sniping and arguing was put on halt until the job was done. 

And Buffy didn’t have to kill anyone, which was always of the good. She did it when she had to, but she was still a slayer of monsters, not of men. 

On their way back to town, a wagon full of boom between them and a group of twenty men at their backs, Faraday sidled up to Buffy, bottle in hand. He reminded her of Spike, a bit, constantly drunk, sort of bad, but probably actually decent underneath and not liking it one bit. The being decent part. 

Last night, Teddy had told them about the man’s attempt at teaching him to shoot. He was convinced the man was pulling his leg, but Buffy wasn’t so sure. Not falling for a distraction had saved her life more than once in the past. Faraday’s teaching methods might be suspect, but his intentions were probably pure. 

“So,” he drawled after a few minutes of silence, running a hand through his red hair. “Where did a bonny lass like you learn to fight?”

“When I was fifteen,” she told him, just because she could, “A man showed up and threw a knife at my face. Then he told me to learn or die.”

It was weird, how key moments of Buffy’s life a hundred and fifty years in the future actually fit in better here and now than they ever had at home. If she’d told that story to anyone not in the know back in the good old twenty-first century, someone probably would have put her in a padded cell. Or called CPS. Even odds, really. 

Faraday just made a sort of nonplussed, vaguely impressed face and said, “That sounds like a rough way to live, Ma’am.”

“Beats the alternative,” she informed him, and he nodded, a bit slow from too much whiskey. 

“True that. You are a very wise woman.”

She snorted and flicked at his ear, missing as he jerked his head away. “If you’re trying to flirt with me, don’t,” she informed him. “I would eat you for breakfast.”

He gave her impressive side-eye, “Now, would that be a good thing or a bad one?”

He didn’t mean it, though, just flirting for the sake of flirting now. Buffy laughed and was about to comment, when Red Harvest suddenly appeared, pushing his spotted horse between theirs. He kept his gaze straight ahead, but was sending _fuck off_ vibes Faraday’s way hard enough that the drunk man actually noticed and decided to go bother someone else for a while. 

Buffy waited until he was gone to give Red Harvest a raised eyebrow. He was still staring straight ahead, but radiating smugness now. 

“If that was you trying to protect my virtue, I’m insulted. If it was you marking your territory, I might kick you in the nuts.” She paused. “So which is it?”

He made the same face he always made at Horne when the older man tried to talk to him. 

“Don’t give me that shit, I know you understand me.”

At that, he grinned, actually freaking _winked_ at her, and then took a sharp left with his horse, to track something he’d seen in the bushes. Presumably. Not like he actually talked to her. 

Buffy shook her head and watched him go. 

Weird guy. 

Hot. 

But very weird. 

+

There was a knock at the door. 

It was ass-o’clock in the morning, she’d only just gotten to bed after a long day digging ditches and making plans, and there was a knock at the door. Dawn, as usual, was dead to the world. Teddy wasn’t in tonight. 

That left Buffy to answer and the door and potentially murder whoever was on the other side of it. 

The murderee turned out to be Red Harvest, in full gear, horse trailing behind. 

“What?” Buffy managed blearily, stuffing her dagger back into the pocket of the loose shirt she slept in. 

“Scouting for Bogue,” he told her, no frills, no nothing. “Want to come?”

Scrunching up her nose, Buffy considered his offer. On the one hand, there was work to be done here. On the other hand, if they went together and found Bogue’s army ahead of time, maybe they could to some damage.

“Just scouting?” she asked.

He raised one hand, made a wavy motion. “We’ll see.”

She held up a finger. “Give me twenty to wake my sister and get my stuff.”

“I’ll get your horse,” he announced and, without another word, bled back into the pre-light-pollution darkness. 

Definitely weird. 

+

Sam saw them out of town just as dawn crested above the valley and they spent the early morning riding at a quick pace, in order to find Bogue as soon as possible. 

Until noon, when the horses needed a break and some water – Buffy too, for that matter – the only words spoken was an occasional, “Look here,” or “There?”

They munched on some of Emma’s specialty cheese and sat in the shade of a sad little tree, watching the horses graze. 

“Why me?” Buffy asked. He had the pick of every able bodied fighter in that town and picked her to go with him. She wanted to know why. 

He gave her a long look, then shrugged and said something in Comanche, face scrunching up in thought. 

“My path,” he started, haltingly, “is different. Not path of my people.” Another pause. “Your path… is different, too. Maybe different in same way.”

Was it weird that that sounded almost romantic to Buffy? Probably, since her experiences with romance included Angelus leaving her dead animals on her front porch, and Spike trying to murder Dru to prove his devotion to her. 

Before she could comment, he added, “Too, you’re a good fighter. Quick. Quiet. Good for ambush.”

Well. There was that. 

“Thanks, I think,” she allowed. “You’re pretty good yourself.” 

He was younger than her by at least a handful of years – she’d been twenty-nine for almost three years now, and Dawn could stop telling everyone she was lying about that, thanks a lot – but he’d probably started learning earlier than her fifteen, so their experiences were probably comparable. You know, insofar as battling the hordes of hell in a miniskirt ever really compared to anything else. 

Shared life experience and all that. Sometimes, Buffy was still tempted to go and find Spike or Angelus, but they wouldn’t be hers yet. The experiences that shaped them were behind her, but in front of them. 

She had Dawn, sure, but Dawn had Teddy and a new life in Rose Creek. 

Buffy had Emma and Matt, but they didn’t know about her day job. Didn’t know about demons and monsters. 

There really wasn’t anyone she just… clicked with. 

Aaaaand she was reading way too much into a little professional appreciation, wasn’t she?

She smiled at Red to cover her slip into lalaland and then decided, “We should keep moving.”

They did. 

+

In the end, they found Bogue around midday the next day. And he had a lot of friends with him.

A lot. 

Like, invite five people to bring a friend to your birthday party, and someone posts it on facebook _a lot_. 

She had to actually teach her scout buddy new numbers in English in order for them to add up what they saw. Which was: more than two-freaking-hundred.

“We’re screwed,” she announced the moment they were safely away from the convoy. 

Red gave her a questioning look. “Dead,” she amended. “We’re dead.”

He made a show of putting a hand on his heart, feeling his pulse. “Not yet,” he told her. 

Super. Buffy was riding into certain death with an optimist. 

She sighed. “How do we thin them out?”

+

If this were the twenty-first century, that would be a machine gun. 

But this was the nineteenth century and Buffy was pretty sure machine guns hadn’t been invented yet. 

Problem: that really did look very much like a machine gun. 

Solution: destroy it anyway.

“We need to get rid of that thing,” she told her partner, pointing at the cloth-covered _something_ in the middle of the camp the men put up for the night. It was mostly just tired assholes around fires, their horses nearby. They hadn’t even brought tents, no heavy gear. Nothing but enough food to get them there and a whole lot of ammo.

And a maybe-machine-gun. 

“What is it?”

“A weapon. A big one.” Probably. 

“Dangerous,” he decided, after a good while clocking the sentinels and guard posts. 

Buffy wished she’d thought to bring some dynamite. But, “Also, we should probably do it in a way that doesn’t give away that it’s us sabotaging them. Let them think there is no ‘us’, just a bunch of scared farmers. Get it?”

He took a moment to parse that, then nodded. “Sneaky.”

“Sneaky.”

+

In the end, the sneakiest thing they could come up with was blaming it on someone else. 

There were two heavy boxes with ammo to go with the definitely-a-machine-gun – Buffy peeked – and without them, the behemoth of a gun was useless. 

They kidnapped one of the guards and put his clothes on Red, who then just walked into camp and took the boxes, knocking out two more guards on the way. 

Then Red killed the guy. Buffy was grateful. They tied him to his horse, loaded the ammo onto their own, and got the hell out of there, careful to stay on rocky terrain long enough to leave no tracks. 

Having a Comanche around turned out to be really handy when it came to making oneself untraceable. Cliché, but true. Or maybe Buffy just really sucked at wilderness stuff. But hey, at least she could make a fire with flint these days. Well, eight times out of ten. And she could ride. Riding was important!

They took a huge detour and didn’t free the horse from its dead rider until they were absolutely sure Bogue’s men wouldn’t find either of them. Then they buried the ammo since they had no use for it and rode hell for leather back to Rose Creek. 

BFG or not, there was still an army headed for Buffy’s home. 

Before they took off, though, Buffy clapped the dirt off her hands and held her right one up high. When Red gave her a clueless look, she grabbed his hand, spread his fingers, and smacked his palm against hers, possibly inventing the high-five ahead of time and not caring. 

“We just saved a lot of lives.”

He grinned. 

+

“You’re leaving,” Buffy stated the obvious as she stepped out of the shadows between the church and the saloon.

Goodnight, in the process of slinking out of town like a beaten dog, paused. 

“Are you going to attempt convincing me of my mistake as well, Miss Summers?”

Was she?

In the lights of the saloon, she could see five others of Emma’s ragtag bunch, all watching Goodnight ride out with expressions ranging from stoic to angry. Red was the only one who seemed serene, watching her rather than their fleeing comrade. 

“No.” He actually looked surprised at that, then caught himself and tipped his hat at her. 

“Then, Ma’am, I shall be on my –“

“I do have some advice for you, though,” she cut him off. 

Warily, he paused. 

“You can’t outrun them. Whatever demons are hunting you, you’ll never outrun them.” She smiled, more bitterly than Buffy Summers of Rose Creek usually allowed herself. This was Sunnydale Buffy bleeding through, the girl who walked toward certain death in a white dress at the age of sixteen, the girl who jumped into the dawn and crawled out of her grave. “They have your scent and they don’t sleep.”

God knew hers had followed her all the way back to a long gone century. 

Goodnight didn’t know what to make of that, that much was clear. After a long moment of silence atop his dancing horse, he simply nodded. “I’ll take it under advisement, Ma’am.”

And then he was gone. 

+

The actual battle was a blur, the way most battles were. There was fire and explosions, blood and death and shots fired, men groaning as they bled out, people screaming. 

A heart-stopping moment where the saloon the kids were hiding under caught fire, and another one where someone started firing at the sandbags that were all that separated Emma and Dawn from certain death. 

A random moment, in the middle of the never-ending hail of bullets, hiding in the church ruins with Vasquez and Billy, where Buffy was suddenly, ridiculously glad they’d gotten rid of the thing Chisolm had identified as a Gatling. They were already losing so many people without that monster of modern warfare turned against them. 

And then, between one beat and the next, Goodnight was back, bellowing and firing from his horse, every shot a kill, and Billy rushed out to meet him and somehow that seemed to turn the tide. 

Buffy exchanged a quick grin with the Mexican at her side and they both flung themselves back into the fray, him with both his guns blazing, her with a knife, because bullets were precious. They twirled and killed their way right back up Main Street where they were met by Faraday, who was sporting a gutshot and a devil may care grin and Red, who’d run out of bullets and was slicing and dicing just like Buffy. 

He paused long enough to press his back against hers before lunging forward again and she kept grinning for the rest of the fight because somehow, somehow, some-fucking-how they were winning. 

The bombs, ditches and trip wires, the shooting galley and the kill boxes, all of it was working well enough to whittle the numbers down to something they could fight. 

Better yet, something they could fight and _win_. 

Faraday took another bullet, this one in the arm, yelled and went down. Vasquez avenged him in a storm of bullets and Spanish swears, standing over the downed man and covering him. 

Red casually flung his nearest and next target at Buffy and crouched low to help haul Faraday out of the line of fire. Buffy finished her present and grabbed the next guy, got attacked from behind and heard twin cracks of rifles above her head before the weight at her back disappeared. 

She didn’t need to look to know Goodnight and Billy had taken up the post the original plan had always intended for them. 

Eventually, the fight devolved into mopping up the mess and then, silence. 

Buffy stood, a knife in each hand, blood all over her, Red at her back, surveying the area and not finding a single living thing left. 

Slowly, muscle by muscle, she relaxed. 

When she turned to congratulate Red on not dying and maybe see how Faraday was doing, she found the other man already holding up his hand, palm out. 

She gave him five. 

And then she gave him a kiss, because it was that kind of moment. 

“Hey! I’m the one dying! Kiss me!” 

Yep, Faraday was definitely doing okay.

“Shut up, guero. You’re ruining the moment!” A smack. Vasquez seemed to be okay, too, but right then, Buffy really didn’t care. 

+

Faraday wasn’t the only one who ended up at the Summers’ homestead under Dawn’s tender, ahem, care. Horne had decided to get himself perforated with arrows in the middle of battle, Goody and Billy both took a bullet each and apparently, Buffy did, too. 

Not that she noticed.

Gotta love adrenaline. 

But they all survived and that was miracle enough. Like, seriously, _how_?

“The Gatling,” Goodnight provided on the second day of rolling around Buffy’s living room and acting like he was dying. “If that devil’s gun had been fired, none of us would be here, by my reckoning.”

“Good allies,” Billy added from where he was perched on the table, watching Buffy clean her knife collection. He totally had a hard-on for her machete, she could tell. He was also probably talking about her knives, not her. Little homicidal maniac. He was Buffy’s kind of people. 

“God’s grace,” Horne supplied piously. Since he said it between sips of whiskey, Buffy decided to take it with a grain of salt. 

Faraday groaned. Dawn poked him. He groaned louder. “I’m dying!”

“You’re not dying. You’re being a baby.”

“I have a hole in my gut, woman!”

Buffy rolled her eyes, “So do I,” she offered. “You don’t see me whining about it.”

“Obviously, mine is bigger.”

“If we were talking about mouths, mayhaps,” Goodnight threw in his two cents and then the two were off like and old married couple. In the corner, their resident bear put down his whiskey and started praying. 

Buffy did the only sensible thing: she grabbed her machete before Billy could get his grubby paws on it and got the hell out of there. 

+

Red Harvest, along with Sam and Vasquez - no first name, apparently - was helping the townsfolk clean up. At this stage, that mostly meant gathering the dead and propping up whatever structure looked like it might fall down next and make more dead. 

By the time Buffy found him, he’d already cleared out the church and was in the process of putting the few pews left back into upright positions, neatly arrayed along the scorched walls. 

That’s what you get when you let a man who’d never seen a functional church from the inside clean one up. 

To test the waters, and because she kind of wanted to, she greeted him with a kiss. 

Which he returned. Yay. 

It was a little bit ridiculous for her to be this excited about some light petting, but not everyone had their very own Teddy Q and it had been a stressful few years, okay. 

So when the hot guy kissing her stuck his hand into the loose shirt she wore because of ouchy, she didn’t really think about it. Not until his hand squeezed and he froze and whoops, right. Ouchy.

Which wasn’t really an ouchy anymore because it had been forty-eight hours, but there still should have been because it had only been forty-eight hours. 

Very carefully, she pulled back and looked down. Yep. His hand was sitting smack on the place where she’d had a hole just two days ago. She should have been screaming in pain. 

Equally carefully, Red crouched down, moved her shirt aside and then pushed down the bandages to find puckered pink skin where a scar should have been. 

Buffy had been here, in this exact place and moment, too often to go down the ‘I can explain’ route. It never worked anyway. 

But all he did was slowly put everything back in order and straighten up again. 

“Different path,” he said. 

And Buffy exhaled. 

Different path. 

Okay then. 

+

**Author's Note:**

> Come tumble with me [here](http://www.wordsformurder.tumblr.com/).


End file.
